Report: Renault could reduce its workforce at French factory

France’s second biggest automaker, Renault, is considering – according to a report from French business daily Les Echos – the move to stop one of the two shifts it has at its Flins manufacturing facility.

If it becomes official, the decision to cut one of the plant’s two shifts would mean the total output production would be reduced from 145,000 units at the moment to just 110,000 cars.

While Renault hasn’t commented on the report, the newspaper said the new workforce reduction would not interfere with the deal already in place with French unions that would see Renault’s home production increased by around a third to 710,000 units by 2016.

Also, according to the deal, Renault has so far reduced its French workforce by 2,500 persons, in a deal that would see a total of 7,500 job cuts made in exchange of the promise that local production would be protected.

Les Echos cited in its report unidentified sources that said the plant’s management talked to unions and announced them it was considering a further increase of the job cuts, besides the already discussed 400 temporary jobs. The factory near Paris is currently manufacturing the Clio 3, Clio 4 and ZOE models and Renault also said some time ago it would move to produce around 82,000 units of alliance partner Nissan Micras since 2016 to up the model’s production numbers in France.